How To Use Coloured Contact Lenses to Change Up Your Look (2025)

• Hugh McInerney
• November 20, 2024

Contact lenses are great for correcting your vision and are a popular choice for people who want to avoid the discomfort of glasses frames. They’re also the easiest way to change up your look by giving you a new eye colour.

Coloured contact lenses can give you a whole new vibe by giving you a different iris hue or enhancing your natural one. It’s a fun way to add a new dynamic to your clothes and makeup, liven up a costume, or make you feel more confident. With contact lens technology rapidly evolving, there may be even more crazy shades, patterns, and designs in store for the near future. Thankfully, the present also offers a wide array of choices to play around with.

Here’s how you can use coloured contact lenses to change up your look:

Explore Various Types

Coloured contact lenses aren’t just varied in terms of colours; different types can alter your eyes’ appearance in different ways. Some options offer a more subtle shift that complements your natural hue, while others can completely transform your look. Coloured contact lenses like the Air Optix Colors use 3-in-1 colour technology, which mixes three individual rings of colour to enhance your eye colour while adding vibrancy. Other options like FreshLook Colorblends offer more brilliant and dramatic colours, such as Gemstone Green and True Sapphire. You can choose the type based on your personal style and preferences. If you just want to jazz up a causal look, something more subtle yet eye-catching can make an impact. For a bold vibe, opaque contacts can give you a new look that suits more avant-garde outfits or even cosplay. You may also need to consider your natural hue, as darker eyes may need more opaque or striking contacts to create a noticeable change.

Choose A Flattering Colour

While there are no rules to choosing coloured contacts you love, some shades may suit you better than others. Knowing which hues suit you more can narrow down your options and make you feel more satisfied and confident with how they look on you. One way to determine which colours may flatter you is by taking inspiration from colour analysis, which uses skin tone, natural eye tone, and hair colour to create a personalised palette. While this is often used for fashion, it can help with coloured contact lenses, too. For instance, if you have a warm skin undertone that’s more yellowish, shades like hazel, brown, or even green can flatter you. A cool undertone with more blue can look good with grey, blue, or violet. You can check the colour of your veins or hold a white and cream piece of cloth or paper to your face to find your skin undertone. Your natural eye and hair colour can also give you hints.

Match Your Style And Makeup

Coloured contact lenses can look striking on their own, but you can take the new look even further by harmonising them with your fashion and makeup. Consider the type of coloured contacts you’re wearing and how the rest of your get-up can make them stand out or blend in.

Subtle-coloured contact lenses can work well for a more understated and sophisticated aesthetic, and you can complement that change with a more elegant makeup look. You can take cues from K-Beauty looks that favour a cleaner, more natural aesthetic than Western makeup’s bold glam. Coloured contacts brand Hapa Kristin shows how well minimal makeup can look in its campaign with IVE’s Jang Wonyoung, who pairs olive, hazel, and grey contacts with simple mascara and a glossy lip. Brilliant and vibrant coloured contacts can also make a statement with simpler clothes and makeup, which is great if you want them to be the standout part of your look. You can also match the vibe they create with an equally dramatic look; think smokey eyeshadow, bold lip colours, and sharp eyeliner, or outfits with unique silhouettes, patterns and colour palettes.